Sponge Cake with Caramelised Apple filling

I like this time of year with apples being plentiful and the weather turning chillier. I wanted to make a cake for my lovely friend Amy, soon-mum-to-be, something for her to indulge on a cold autumn’s evening.  The combination of toffee taste and apples was a lot on my mind recently, had a spare hour on Sunday and I decided to improvise a little.

For the sponge recipe I have chosen a traditional Victoria Sponge, but my improvisation came in place when it was time to make the filling. I didn’t want to use the ready-made toffee sweets, or to make a very rich toffee sauce, but I still wanted to have a toffee/caramel taste. I think I found a solution (see the recipe below) 🙂

SPONGE CAKE WITH CARAMELISED APPLE FILLING

Ingredients:

3 large eggs

175g softened butter

175g caster sugar

175g self-raising flour

1½ teaspoons of baking powder

For the filing:

3 desert apples, diced

30g butter

3 tablespoons demerara sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

200ml double cream, whipped until soft picks

Plus: 2 x 18 cm greased and lined sandwich tins

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C. Grease two sandwich tins then line the base of each tin with baking parchment.

2. Measure the butter, sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder into a large bowl and beat until thoroughly blended. Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and level out.

3. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes or until well risen and the tops of the cakes spring back when lightly pressed with a finger. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes then turn out, peel off the parchment and finish cooling on a wire rack.

4. For the filling, finely chop the apples, put in a frying pan together with sugar, cinnamon and butter and cook until caramelised, stirring occasionally (make sure apples don’t burn) until the mixture caramelises. Let it cool. Meanwhile whip the cream.

5. When the sponges are completely cold, spread the apple filling and whipped cream in between two layers. Sprinkle with caster sugar or icing powder and serve 😉